For us, it was only for a brief time, until my young, struggling single mother found a full-time job. But both my family and Francie’s had gone on welfare (during the thirties, it was called “relief”).
In Jacksonville, Florida, in the seventies, I didn’t leave school in the middle of the day to go home for lunch I was bussed thirty minutes each way from my Black neighborhood to a white school in the suburbs, thanks to Brown v. But as a Black girl reader, I didn’t even know I was hungry to see myself, even partially, in a book until I finally did. Francie’s fraught world-1934 Harlem-differed from mine in key ways. Rereading Daddy Was a Number Runner was like catching up with an old friend. She renders Francie’s story such that it was as accessible and compelling to me as a precocious ten-year-old as it is when I read it today, a testament to Meriwether’s craft. Meriwether’s writing is beautiful, layered, and gutting. I reread this book countless times from my elementary school years through high school it was that good.
BALDWIN DIGITAL PIANO 20 YEARS OLD MOVIE
There’s also the bald white man in the doorway to the roof of the building-the same man who had recently followed Francie into a movie theater and gave her a dime before fumbling beneath her skirt.įorty years after I first read Louise Meriwether’s novel, Daddy Was a Number Runner, I still know these opening scenes like the back of my hand. Sukie isn’t the only danger lurking around Francie’s tenement. Francie, who laments being “skinny and black and bad looking,” envies Sukie. Sukie is evil, light-skinned, and pretty. Sukie threatens to “beat the shit out of” Francie yet again. As Francie observes, “A number runner is something like Santa Claus and any day you hit the number is Christmas.” Before Francie can make it home to the railroad flat apartment where her mother serves her a dreaded potted-meat sandwich and a weak cup of tea for lunch, she’s chased by Sukie, a bully who also happens to be her best friend. Mackey’s number slip and money on behalf of her father, a neighborhood number runner. Mackey, and their Harlem neighbors all pin their hopes on “the numbers,” a type of daily underground lottery.
This is important because Francie has come to collect Mrs. Madame Zora’s dream book gives the number 514 for fish dreams. Mackey is delaying her with talk of dreams they both had the night before, dreams about fish. Twelve-year-old Francie Coffin is going to be late getting back to school, again.
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